


With a Friend in the Dark

by Still_and_Clear



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Sexual Tension, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:00:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3907117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_and_Clear/pseuds/Still_and_Clear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Oswald assess the damage caused by the showdown at the warehouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Friend in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I was so infuriated by the amount of miscommunication going in the last two episodes of the season that I decided to lock Jim and Oswald in a vault until they talked it out.
> 
> The title refers back to Oswald's comment to Jim, which he in turn got from Helen Keller: "Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light"

The last metallic clang echoed sullenly around the vault, and Jim kicked the door in frustration, cursing as he did so. Turning round to face the centre of the room, he leaned his back against the smooth metal of the door and slid down to sit on the floor, breathing hard.

“A characteristic waste of your energies.” Oswald’s voice was as soft as his words were cutting, slicing through the darkness of the vault.

Reining in his temper, Jim ran his tongue over his teeth. “The fact that we’re here at all is your fault”. 

Even as he said it, though, Jim’s conscience chided him that this was not entirely true. Oswald had contacted him weeks ago about a heist, but Jim had been reluctant to be seen to be cooperating with him. Falcone’s words about being the man to clean up the city had been echoing round his head – unbalancing him more than inspiring him, making him second-guess every decision and distrust his gut instinct. 

This endless second-guessing had proved disastrous, and when Jim had finally decided to act on Oswald’s tip-off, dragging a protesting Harvey along with him, they had found Oswald and Butch already there, waiting to foil the heist themselves. In the argument that had ensued – and Jim was _not_ convinced that Oswald had been planning a citizen’s arrest – the robbers had shown up, and bedlam had followed. Jim had somehow found himself bundled into the vault with Oswald and the door slammed shut, while Harvey and Butch, working alarmingly well together, had given chase.

“Not _my_ fault”, came Oswald’s rejoinder, irritatingly smug, and even more irritatingly right. “I tried to warn you that this heist had been planned. A friendly warning. Its prevention would have benefitted us both. You did not listen to me, and now….here we are”

“We are not colleagues, Cobblepot!” Jim snapped. “We do not help each other out. You are a criminal. I am a detective.”

Oswald chuckled. “I don’t think even you believe that at heart, Jim. Not anymore. You have been in Gotham long enough now to understand that the relationship between our two worlds is _infinitely_ more tangled than that. We need each other. You acknowledged it yourself when you told Falcone he was your most acceptable option to run the city.” A petulant edge crept into Oswald’s tone at this, evidently still smarting over Jim’s decision.

“In an ideal world there would be no need…” Jim began. He heard a snort of laughter from the opposite wall of the vault. 

“ _An ideal world_. My. You’re a good man, Jim. A decent man, and Gotham should be grateful it has you, as it should be that it has me…” - Jim let out an incredulous huff at that, but Oswald carried on regardless – “But you shouldn’t allow your wishes for how you want the world to be to blind you to its realities. Any virtue can become a vice, if taken to excess”

Jim did not answer immediately, trying to find a flaw in Oswald’s reasoning. Fish Mooney and Maroni’s downfalls had shown everyone in town that Oswald Cobblepot was a force to be reckoned with. He had protested to Jim months ago that he knew things, and could see things – but Jim hadn’t fully taken in the intelligence behind his sly glances and crooked grins. 

In the absence of a good answer, Jim decided to fall back on habit in an attempt to regain some firm ground. 

“Look, Cobblepot, I’m not interested in…”

“ _Liar_. How unlike you, Jim”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say!”

“You really think I got this far without being able to read people? Oswald chuckled. “I asked you for one moment to look beyond your rulebook – that rulebook only limits your potential, Jim. You fall back on platitudes and procedure because you’re afraid. You _are_ interested in what I have to say– although you’d never admit it. Lying to yourself is the worst deception”

“ _You _. You of all people lecturing me about lying?!” Jim was indignant.__

“Lying to _yourself_ ” Oswald repeated. “Lying to others is a necessary tool for survival. It takes _finesse_. Lying to yourself…” 

Goaded, Jim shot back, “And you don’t?” 

“No, I do _not_. I know _exactly_ what I want, and who I am. I’m not afraid of what motivates me, and I own my mistakes - I learn from them, and let them make me stronger.” 

Jim bit down hard on his tongue, frustrated past believing, but wary of trying to engage in a war of words with a man as manipulative as Oswald Cobblepot. 

“You, for example. I understand now why you backed Falcone. I forgive you that error. I should have factored that risk into my plans” 

Jim’s head snapped up at that. “My _error_?” 

“You’re a military man, Jim. Or you were, at least. You respect order. Authority. The chain of command. You want institutions to _stand_ for something, you want their leaders to be shining moral examples. It’s why you were so bitterly disappointed by the corruption you found in Gotham, so furious: order, authority – all rotten through.” 

Shaking his head, Jim opened his mouth to protest, but no sound emerged. Oswald carried on, apparently taking his silence as tacit agreement. 

“You persist in your idealism, though. You stood opposite Victor Zsasz - _Victor Zsasz_ , Jim - and honestly thought that your brother police would leap to your defence. And even their betrayal didn’t enlighten you – cure this _need_ to have these institutions mean something. When you had the choice between Falcone’s established power and two pretenders to the throne – you _still_ tried to defend the order of things, defend Falcone. I should have seen that possibility” 

Oswald paused, and hummed consideringly. Jim could imagine Oswald’s head tilted, his lips pursed, pale eyes flickering over a million possibilities. 

“There’s your father too, I suppose.” 

“What?” Jim’s voice sounded harsh to his own ears. 

“ _He_ backed Falcone. If you believe that he did that out of mere convenience, well, then he is tarnished – just another corrupt official. But if you choose to believe that your father saw something somehow _different_ in Falcone, something worthy, some reason he should lead…… _Then_ your decision to back Falcone justifies your father’s actions. It _redeems_ him in your eyes.” 

No. No, no, no. A fuse tripped in Jim’s head. He lunged forward across the floor of the small vault in the general direction of Oswald’s voice. Only stopping when he could feel warmth, crouched with one knee on the floor, he reached out to grab Oswald's shoulders, jutting his chin to where he guessed his face was. 

“You know _nothing_ about my father!” 

Oswald’s shoulders were rigid in his hands, and Jim could feel a tremor of anger rippling through him at the rough treatment . His response was devastating, his tone venomous. 

“Neither did you, it seems” 

Jim’s voice died in his throat, and for a second there was only the sound of their breathing, both harsh and ragged. 

Slowly, and with a creeping sense of shame, he loosened his hold on Oswald’s shoulders, and heard the other man’s breathing begin to slacken and slow. Pushing back abruptly, he shifted his weight to the left, and sat alongside him. Drained, he tipped his head back against the wall, closing his eyes despite the darkness in the room. Jim could practically feel the indignation radiating from the man beside him. 

“ _He_ wanted you dead, you know”, said Oswald, his tone sulky. 

“Falcone? When I tried to arrest him?” Jim's brow creased in confusion. 

“And after” 

Jim’s tone was disbelieving. “I don’t believe you. If he had wanted me dead, then I’d have been dead” 

Oswald’s tone dripped with saccharine sarcasm. “It’s _almost_ as if you had an angel watching over you, whispering in Falcone’s ear on your behalf” 

Jim curled his lip at that, his tone sneering. “I don’t think so. If you had saved my life you’d never have let me hear the end of it. You’d have been on my back constantly for favours...” 

“No!” Oswald sounded oddly stung by this. “ _I_ wasn’t the one who wanted to count favours, remember?” 

“Then why? Because you wanted a cop of your own on the inside?” 

Oswald let out an amused burble of laughter. “Please. If I just wanted that then I could have saved myself a _lot_ of bother. I don’t think it can possibly have escaped your attention, Jim, but this is _Gotham_. Many of your worthy colleagues are more than a little corrupt. I could have found a _much_ more malleable man in half the time. I already told you - You’re a decent man, and those are in short supply in Gotham.” 

There was a beat of silence, loaded, before he continued. “Besides, I thought – well - I thought we were actually….” 

Oswald caught himself before he could finish that sentence, and something in Jim’s gut twisted unpleasantly at the quiet sigh that followed. He put the fidgety feeling of discomfort that Oswald’s overtures of friendship always produced to one side for the moment. Jim prided himself on being a fair man, and if Oswald had saved his life – and Barbara’s probably – then Jim would acknowledge that. He cleared his throat. 

“I didn’t know that. Thank-you.” 

He heard movement beside him, and guessed that Oswald had turned to look at him, useless though this was in the dark. He made no reply, though, and the ugly little knot in Jim’s stomach twisted tighter until it pushed another awkward sentence out of him, one that had been stuck in his throat for weeks. 

“I wouldn’t have….” He chewed his lip, “I know it looked……” He started again, the words coming out in a rush. “I wouldn’t have left you there for Maroni. You didn’t have to call in a favour for that. I was trying to think of the cleanest way to get everyone out of …” 

Oswald cut in, his voice quiet and regretful. “I’m not quite sure I believe you.” 

Jim felt inexplicably troubled by this assessment of his character. “I thought you said I was a decent man?” he countered. 

“That’s very slippery of you, Jim, using my own words against me. Your time is Gotham is starting to show. I did hope, though, that you would have acted out of more than just common decency, and chosen to save me because, because…” 

Oswald’s voice trailed off again; apparently reluctant to voice his once persistent claim that they were friends. 

Jim wondered, for a brief moment, if he _would_ have felt any differently at seeing Oswald shot dead in that room than he would anyone else in his custody. He made himself picture it, imagined him on the floor – bloodied and ruffled as he had been in the trunk of Harvey’s car that day on the pier, but this time still and quiet. No pleading eyes, no stammered bargaining, no frantic hands – just still and cold on the floor. 

Jim swallowed, and felt bile rise in his throat. The silence bothered him, suddenly. 

“Oswald?” 

“Yes?” 

Jim felt something loosen in his chest at the sound of him, and released a breath that sounded terrifyingly like relief. He flexed his hands, feeling the smooth metal floor against his fingertips, and wondered exactly how screwed he was. 

“Jim?” Oswald’s voice was questioning, wondering why he had gone quiet. 

Casting about quickly for something, _anything_ , else to talk about, Jim remembered how awkwardly he had landed when they had been shoved into the vault. Well, Oswald had somehow wound up being more flung, than shoved. Jim had never met anyone before who wound up with so many black eyes. 

“How’s your wrist? Is it broken?”

“It’s _painful_. I can’t tell if it’s broken.” This was followed by a muffled yelp, as Oswald presumably tried to prod at his injured wrist. 

“Let me see” said Jim gruffly. The darkness in the room and blurry lines in their conversation were beginning to make him feel strangely disorientated, and he seized at the chance to do something practical that would ground the situation. Twisting his body to face him, Jim reached out blind in the dark, and stretched his hand out tentatively. His knuckles brushed a shirt sleeve. He stopped, and then lightly ran his knuckles down the sleeve until he found Oswald’s wrist. 

“Here – like this” 

He slid his hand into Oswald’s like they were shaking hands, and held it gently. Carefully, he moved it to and fro, bending the slim wrist minutely. Oswald let out a sudden hiss of pain. 

“Here?” Jim asked 

“Yes” said Oswald, his voice strained. 

“Could be a break. Hold on” 

Grasping at dim memories from basic training, Jim kept Oswald’s hand in his, and brought his left hand up, running his index finger lightly over Oswald’s hand until he found the little hollow at the base of his thumb, and pressed lightly, checking for any breaks. He heard Oswald’s breath catch in his throat. 

“That sore?” 

“N-no…no. No pain” 

“Probably just a strain”, said Jim. Oswald's hand was cool, despite the cloying heat in the vault. He let go of it slowly, carefully, and leant his head back against the wall of the vault. 

“Thank-you. That was kind of you, James.” 

Jim’s eyebrows raised at this. _James_. He hadn’t heard that name from Oswald in a while. Although Oswald had sought to maintain their ‘professional’ relationship after the events at the warehouse, with the usual calls and meetings, there had been a new sense of distance between them. He was polite now where he had had been warm before, and his glances were careful and considering when before they had been… Jim’s mind shied away from naming exactly what he saw in Oswald’s eyes before. He didn’t even know if Oswald was aware of how obvious it was. Harvey could see it, and had teased Jim mercilessly about a lovers’ tiff, and how he was getting the silent treatment, and had he considered flowers and chocolates? 

Jim had told himself firmly that he was relieved that Oswald _finally_ understood the boundaries of their relationship. The fact that every one of these scrupulously professional meetings with Oswald now left Jim with a nagging headache and an inexplicably foul mood was something he chose not to examine closely, although a vague lurking suspicion crept round the edges of his mind, and sometimes kept him awake at night. 

He thought of Oswald’s earlier accusation – that he lied to himself – and forced himself to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: that when Oswald had called him James it had felt bizarrely _right_ , giving him back a sense of himself that Falcone’s words had somehow knocked askew. 

“It’s fine”, said Jim. “Don’t worry about it” 

He felt Oswald’s searching fingers bump against the side of his hand where it rested on the floor, and squeeze it lightly in a wordless gesture of thanks, before drawing away again. 

Oswald asked him then if he had found somewhere new to live, now that - as he delicately put it -‘his situation had changed’. Jim told him he had, which had led to a light conversation about the location of his new apartment, and Oswald’s approval of the same, and a conversation about how that part of the city had become gentrifed – Oswald was frighteningly knowledgeable about the city – and the time passed easily. Before long, they both heard footsteps and voices approaching. 

“Hey, Jim – you killed him yet, or have you kissed and made up?” 

Jim rolled his eyes and ignored the question. “Very funny, Harvey. Did you get them?” 

“Yeah – no problem. Your employee here is a real asset, Cobblepot. I damn near tried to recruit him” 

Oswald did not deign to answer this. 

“How about getting us out of here?” called Jim. 

“Yeah – they’ll be here in ten minutes. We’ll wait out front for them” 

Butch and Harvey’s voices and footsteps receded. Jim started to get to his feet, hearing Oswald starting to do the same beside him. 

“Here” said Jim, extending his arm to help Oswald up, figuring his leg would be stiff after all that time on the floor. Oswald did not release Jim’s arm when he stood, and Jim did not feel an immediate need to pull his arm away. They stood in companionable silence. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this far, thanks. I hope you enjoyed. I find direct speech difficult to write - so I hope you didn't find it too clunky. 
> 
> I was worried about making Oswald a bit too all-knowing - but I do honestly think that he is exceptionally good at reading people and their motivations.
> 
> Jim misses out a couple of tests when he's examining Oswald's wrist, but telescoping the thumb isn't very sexy, so it got left out :D
> 
> comments are always welcome and appreciated :)


End file.
